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RRCA Hall of Fame 1980 - 89

1980

Ruth Anderson
She pioneered women’s ultra-running in the 1970s, at a time when virtually no American women participated in the sport. She established numerous American ultra women’s records, and became an inspiration for the first generation of American ultra women, who led the world ultra rankings well into the 1980s. The Ruth Anderson 50k/50m/100k held in San Francisco each April since 1993 is named after her. In 1986, she was a founding member of the first Ultrarunning Subcommittee of USA Track & Field. Anderson continues today as a USATF committee member and volunteer for long distance running, particularly ultrarunning.

Nina Kuscsik
She began jogging in 1967 with the assistance of Bill Bowerman?s Jogging book as her guide. In 1969, she entered the Boston Marathon as an unofficial entrant and ran a 3:46. She completed 80 marathons with a best time of 2:50:22. Kuscsik set an American record for 50 miles in 1977 in 6:35:53. Kuscsik also has the honor of being the first woman to run the New York City Marathon, the first female winner of the Boston Marathon and a two-time winner of the New York City Marathon. Her winning time for the 1972 New York City Marathon was on the slow side since the women had a sit-down strike for ten minutes after the gun went off to protest women’s inequality in marathon running. She introduced changes in the athletic rules to allow women to run the marathon in United States and to hold United States Championships. She also prepared and introduced resolution adopted by the USA and the IAAF to place the women’s marathon in the Summer Olympics. Kuscsik presented beginning, marathon and women’s running clinics to athletic and professional organizations throughout the United States and wrote articles for Runner?s World, Women?s and Fitness magazines. In addition, Kuscsik was a commentator for running events and training commentary

Thomas Osler
He ran more than 2100 races and won three national championships in the late 1960s in distances from 25k to 50 miles. His best running times were: 6 miles on the track 30:30 in 1965 and 1967; 10 miles on the track 52:40 in 1966; Marathon 2:29:02 at Boston (18th) in 1967; 50 miles on the track 5:49:14 in 1975; 100 miles on the track in 16:11:15 in 1978. In addition, he authored two running books and was a founding member of the RRCA.

William Steiner
He placed first in the marathon in the 1935 Jewish Olympics and the World Maccabiah Games. In addition, he took two second places in the 10,000 meter and 1,600 meter relay team. In 1936, Steiner’s marathon team won the National Relay. In 1942, he was ranked eighth in the world as a marathoner. In addition, Steiner was ranked number one as an American runner in the 20-mile (1932), 20K (1933) and in 30K (1946 and 1947). He finished seventh in the 1942 Boston Marathon and had the tenth fasted time in the world. He also holds a third place (1934) and fifth place (1932) in the Boston Marathon. Steiner finished first in the Metropolitan Marathon (1932, 1934 and 1947), Metropolitan 15 and 20 Kilometers (1934) and Metropolitan 25 Kilometers (1936).

1981

Hal Higdon
Author of 34 books, including the best-selling Marathon: The Ultimate Training Guide. His children’s book, The Horse That Played Center Field, was made into an animated feature by ABC-TV. He ran eight times in the Olympic Trials and won four world masters championships. One of the founders of the Road Runners Club of America (RRCA), he also was a finalist in NASA’s Journalist-in-Space program to ride the space shuttle. He also serves as a training consultant for many races and provides interactive training programs and online guidance. In 2003, that American Society of Journalist and Author’s awarded Higdon with its Career Achievement Award, the highest honor given to writer members.

Steve Prefontaine
In his 24 years, Prefontaine grew from hometown hero, to record-setting college phenomenon, to internationally acclaimed track star. Since his death in 1975, Pre has become the stuff of enduring legend. His rare combination of talent, discipline, determination, and star-quality with a human touch made Pre the idol of those he called “his people” ? the devoted fans who came to watch him run and entered into the performance with roars of encouragement, “Go Pre!” At no place is the celebration of Steve Prefontaine and his story more personal than in Coos Bay, Oregon, where he was born in 1951 and discovered his gift for running fast and far as a student at Marshfield High School. Here, he developed his hunger to be the best in the field, and more, to do it with style?to create beauty when he ran, to show people something they had never seen before. The Prefontaine Memorial Run, a challenging 10K road race across one of his old training courses, is held annually, with its finish line at the high school track where he first competed.

Ken Young
Young set records in the 40-mile and indoor marathon in the early 1970s in the U.S. He learned to program computers in 1965, first using a computer to produce race results in 1970, and then producing computer-based running performance rankings in 1975 while teaching at the University of Arizona. By 1980, these rankings had developed into the National Running Data Center which pioneered and developed road records in the United States (now operated as the RRIC by the USAT&F). In the 1990s, Ken developed a relational database for distance running and began the “Analytical Distance Runner” newsletter. Co-founder of ARRS, he maintains the ARRS database of more than 400,000 performances and is one of the webmasters for the ARRS website.

1982

William Agee
Agee was a U.S. Olympic Men’s Marathon runner. He placed 44th in the 1928 Olympics with a time of 2:58.50

William “Billy” Mills
Mills was a Native American who was raised on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. He took up running while attending the Haskell Institute, which is now known as Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, KS. Both a boxer and a runner in his youth, Mills gave up boxing to focus on running. He then attended the University of Kansas on an athletic scholarship and was named a NCCA All-America cross-country runner three times. In 1960 he won the individual title in the Big Eight cross-country championship. His winning time of 28:24.4 was almost 50 seconds faster than he had ever run the 10,000 m and set a new Olympic record for the event in the 1964 Summer Olympics. He was the first American to win the event. He also finished 14th in the marathon with a 2:22:55.4 Mills later set U.S. records for 10,000 m (28:17.6) and the three-mile run and had a 5,000 m best of 13:41.4. In 1965, he and Gerry Lindgren both broke the world record for the six-mile run when they finished in a tie at the U.S. AAU nationals, running 27:11.6. Billy Mills is the subject of the 1984 film Running Brave and serves as the spokesperson for Running Strong for American Indian Youth, an organization that helps support projects that benefit the American Indian people, especially the youth. In 1990 he wrote Wokini: A Lakota Journey to Happiness and Self-Understanding with Nicholas Sparks. Lessons of a Lakota was published in 2005.

Roberta “Bobbi” Gibb
She was the first woman to complete the Boston Marathon. In 1966, 23-year-old Gibb applied to enter the Boston Marathon, but was refused because she was a woman. She ran unofficially with a time of 3:21:40, and was well received by the other runners as well as greeted by the Governor of Massachusetts at the finish. Her run made front-page news. The next year, Gibb ran unofficially again and finished in 3:27:17 an hour ahead of Kathrine Switzer, who had obtained an official number by disguising her gender on her entry form. She was the first of five unofficial entrants in 1968 as well with a time of 3:30:00. Women were officially allowed to run Boston in 1972. She continued to be a recreational runner and to run marathons. She ran the 1986 and 1996 Boston Marathons to celebrate the anniversaries of her first win. Her most recent Boston finish was in 2001.

1983

Ed Benham
He started running late in his 60s after the passing of his wife. He set numerous records for his age group. In 1989, at 81, he ran a 10-miler in 1:13:23.

Paul de Bruyn
A sailor, De Bruyn arrived in New York in 1930 and started running for a local track club. He won the German marathon title in 1931, and was a surprise winner of the Boston Marathon the following year. Despite being a favorite, he placed 15th in the Olympics.

Gabe Mirkin
He was a competitive marathon runner who was the first to promote regular weekly running races exclusively for women, children and masters runners and also fun runs for novice runners. In 1963, The Amateur Athletic Union of the United States had a rule that it was illegal for women to run races longer than a half mile, so he held the first 2.5 mile Road Runners Club of America National Championship for Women in Catonsville, Maryland. In 1967 with Barry Geisler of New York, he hosted the first Age Group Road Runners club of America National Championships in Van Courtland Park in New York for boys and girls in divisions: 7 and under, 8-9. 10-11, 11-12, 12-13, and 14-15. That same year, he held the first National Postal Championship for the one-mile run for the same age groups, simultaneously at many different sites throughout the United States and Canada. In 1962, he started the Run For Your Life program, a two mile, fun run for novice runners that was added to regular Road Runners Club of America weekly road races for more serious runners. He has been the medical editor of Runners? World and Running Times magazines. He had his own nationally syndicated radio shows and was the fitness broadcaster for CBS radio for 27 years. He had a television show on the Learning Channel and was a syndicated columnist for the New York Times, The Washington Times, The Washington Post and many other newspapers.

1984

Clive Davies
Perhaps his greatest performance was the 1982 Boston Marathon at age 66. Davies ran a 2:43:56 marathon despite starting so far back in the pack that he lost 90 seconds and was forced to run on grass to pass slower runners. The following year, Sports Illustrated wrote that it would be no great stretch to call him “the world’s most gifted distance runner.”

Jacqueline Hansen
Hansen became the first woman in history to run a sub-2:40 marathon (2:38.19 in 1975) and won 12 of her first 15 marathons including Boston plus 2 world records. She was instrumental in gaining Olympic events in the Marathon, 5,000 and 10,000 meters. Besides two world records in the marathon, Jacqueline broke the world record for 15 kilometers on the road, for 6 miles on the track, and 11 other distances on the track in one 50-mile race (200 laps) on the track, winning a national title for the 50-miler. As a master athlete, she won two World Championship titles in the 1500 and 5,000 meters. She is most proud for being President of the International Runners Committee who lobbied the Olympic Committee to add more distances in the Olympic Games for women.

Joan Benoit Samuelson
She started distance running to help recover from a broken leg suffered while slaloming. Excelling in athletics at Bowdoin College, she then entered the 1979 Boston Marathon as a relative unknown. She won the race in 2:35:15, knocking eight minutes off the competition record. She repeated that success with a victory in 1983 that slashed more than two minutes off the world’s best time, set by Grete Waitz in the London Marathon just a day before. Her Boston course record of 2:22:43, set in 1983, was not broken for 11 years. At the 1984 Summer Olympics she won the first Olympic women’s marathon in a time of 2:24.52 in hot and smoggy conditions, more than a minute ahead of her rivals; again despite having had arthroscopic knee surgery on her knee 17 days before the trials earlier that year. She beat the likes of Grete Waitz, Rosa Mota and Ingrid Kristiansen. Benoit enjoyed success at non-marathon distances as well, winning the prestigious Falmouth Road Race (7.1 miles) a total of six times (1976, 1978, 1981-1983, and 1985), breaking the course record on four of those occasions. Although she won the 1985 Chicago Marathon, defeating Kristiansen and Mota in an American Record time of 2:21:21 (that would last as the AR 18 years until broken by Deena Kastor in 2003 in London), Benoit was hampered in the years after her Olympic victory by injuries and struggled to compete in major races. She received the 1985 Sullivan Award as the top amateur athlete in the United States. She retired from competitive running and wrote books, including Running Tide and Running for Women, and opened a running clinic. Aside from this she is a coach to women’s cross-country and long-distance athletes, and is a motivational speaker and sports commentator. She founded the Beach to Beacon Road Race, a 10 km (6.21 mile) race held in Cape Elizabeth, Maine each August that goes from Crescent Beach State Park to Ft. Williams Park and Portland Head Light. It attracts many of the world’s top distance runners. Elite runners often run this race and then, the following weekend, run the Falmouth Road Race on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Benoit has also won that race several times, and ran it last in 2008, finishing as 28th woman and first in her age group. In 2003, at age 46, Benoit won the Maine half marathon, defeating a field dominated by runners two decades her junior, and she was faster than all but six men overall, finishing in 1:18. In 2006, she helped pace Lance Armstron in the New York City Marathon. At the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team trials, at the age of 50, she finished in 2:49:08, setting a new US 50+ record and beating her personal goal of a mid-2:50s retirement marathon.

Kathrine Switzer
She will always be best known as, KV Switzer, the woman who challenged the all-male tradition of the Boston Marathon and became the first woman to officially enter and run the event. Her entry created an uproar and worldwide notoriety when a race official tried to forcibly remove her from the competition. Three decades later, the incident continues to capture the public imagination and is, in part, the reason Switzer has dedicated her multi-faceted career to creating opportunities and equal sport status for women. That career has included creating programs in 27 countries for over 1 million women that led to the inclusion of the women’s marathon as an official event in the Olympic Games, changing forever the face of sports, health and opportunities for women around the world. The “Boston Incident” also inspired Kathrine to become a good athlete: She has run 35 marathons, won the 1974 New York City Marathon, and ran her personal best of 2:51.33 by finishing 2nd in the 1975 Boston Marathon. At the time, this was the 6th best women’s marathon time in the world, and 3rd in the U.S.A.

Bob Schul
As of 2008, he was the only American to have won the Olympic gold medal in the 5000M (1964 Summer Olympics). After graduating from Miami (Ohio) University, Bob Schul served four years in the United States Air Force. In 1961 he joined the Los Angeles Track Club where most of the top U.S. distance runners were training under the noted Hungarian coach Mihaly Igloi. He toured on many of America’s International Teams and was a member of the 1963 Pan American Team. Bob Schul competed in events from the 400 meters to 5000 meters including the steeplechase and gained the speed and endurance to run a sub-4 minute mile. He was the National Champion at 5K in 1964 and 3 miles in 1965. In 1964 set the World Two Mile record running 8:26.4. His greatest accomplishment was winning the 5000 Meter Gold Metal in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics in a time of 13:48.8. He retired in 1965 upon the return of pain from a previous knee injury. He resumed training in 1967 for fitness purposes and this led him to the Olympic trials at South Lake Tahoe where he placed fifth despite numerous injuries and limited training.that final he had an asthma attack after a few laps, and struggled throughout, fainting as he crossed the finish line. In 1971, for one year, he served as the National coach for Malaysia and the moved back to the U.S. re-settling in Ohio. In his spare time he continued to train club athletes without charge to the runners. In 1978 the Air Force sent all their top distance runners to Wright Patterson Air Force Base to train under him. After a year of training, many of the athletes reduced their times enough to compete in national events. He participated in road races along with his club athletes, becoming a top master runner, until age sixty when his right leg and back problems prevented further racing.

Craig Virgin
He was a legend in Illinois High School track and cross-country circles, where he held the two-mile national high school record for many years. His time of 8:40.9 still stands as the fastest time ever recorded in an all high school race. In college at the University of Illinois, Virgin overcame injuries and illnesses to win nine Big 10 Championships, an NCAA Championship, and qualify for his first U.S. Olympic Team. A three-time Olympian in the 10,000 meters, the 1976 NCAA Cross-Country Champion, a seven-time U.S. record-holder in road and track, and the two-time winner of the World Cross-Country Championships, Virgin has a running resume to be proud of. He became the first and only American male to win the I.A.A.F. World Cross-Country championship in 1980. Virgin has also won many of the major sub-marathon races in the U.S. Virgin retired from serious competitive running in January 1992 after a 23-year career of competition in cross-country, track and road racing. He is the president and founder of Front Runner Inc., a sports marketing company.

1985

Henley Roughton Gabeau
In 1975, Henley took her first tentative steps to run, following in her then 12-year old daughter’s example. There were very few women running at that time and the area clubs did not welcome women. So the dozen women Henley met at area races formed their own club, the Washington RunHers, and elected Henley as their first president. Leading the RunHers led to activism in many running issues. Henley met Jeff Darman who set her on a leadership path for the RRCA. She was elected first woman president of the RRCA in 1986 and established the first National Office for the RRCA in 1987. When she stepped down as RRCA president in 1990, she was given the job as the first paid executive director of the RRCA and grew the RRCA from 380 to nearly 700 clubs.

Gordon McKenzie
McKenzie n was a two time Olympian 1956 (10K) and 1960 (Marathon). He was in the famous 1956 Olympic 10,000 meters battle between Vladimir Kuts and Gordon Pirie. He was U.S. AAU Cross-Country Champion in 1953 a race that featured the Ashenfelter brothers and Browning Ross. In the 1956 he set American Records at 6 miles (29:18.6) and 10K (30:23). He moved up to the marathon in 1960 and pushed John J. Kelly to a course record during their classic duel in the Olympic Marathon trial race at Yonkers. He was second at the Boston Marathon in 1960 in a time of 2:22:18. Gordon represented the racially integrated New York Pioneer Club (NYPC) his entire running career. He wanted to join the New York Athletic Club who had all the top milers in the country, but wasn’t welcomed due to his inexperience. On the other hand, NYPC welcomed all runners of all abilities. Gordon loved the camaraderie and democracy of the club. He cited Coach Joe Yancey as a gentleman with an engaging personality.In the early 1960s, Gordon with his engineering background was helpful to John Sterner and Ted Corbitt in their efforts to develop a system of accurately measuring road race courses in the United States.

Alex Ratelle
He ran the Heart of America Marathon eight times, winning the 40+ award every one of those eight times, with a personal best of 2:53:33 in 1969. He still has the 50+ record of 2:54:40, set in 1975, the last year he ran HOA.

John “Jock” Semple
The organizer of the Boston Marathon, Semple drew notoriety when, as Race Director, he attempted to remove Kathrine Switzer’s race number during the 1967 Boston Marathon because she was a woman. Semple was a physical therapist for the Boston Bruins and the Boston Celtics for more than 40 years and was also a trainer for Olympic athletes. He trained the United States Olympic hockey team in 1948 and 1952. He also worked with Olympic bobsledders, skiers and skaters throughout the years. He ran in more than 100 marathons, and was instrumental in the rise of the 26-mile-385-yard Boston road race over the years, including the implementation of qualifying times in 1970 and the formal admission of female runners in 1972.

Louis White
Louis White, born 1908, graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx and majored in journalism at NYU. In 1945, White finished 5th in the Yonkers Marathon and joined the Pioneer Club and began training with Joe Kleinerman. In 1949, White placed 3rd in the Boston Marathon with a time of 2:36:48, and that same year ran three marathons in 16 days.

1986

Nick Costes
Costes graduated from Slippery Rock College after serving in the Navy in World War II. After another stint in the Army from ‘51 to ‘53 he attended graduate school at Boston University in ‘54 and ‘55. The greatest influence on Costes? approach to running was from the ‘52 Olympic 1500 meter gold medal winner, Josy Barthel of Luxembourg. Barthel was also in graduate school at Harvard in ‘54 and ‘55 and he shared his knowledge of some of the European training methods, particularly interval training, with Costes. Costes was the first U.S. runner to apply intensive interval training in preparation for a marathon and would later author the standard for interval training in a book for the Runner?s World Book of the Month Club. The ‘54 Boston was his first marathon. And even though he had no buildup training for the marathon he ran 2:35:17 and was the second American in 9th place behind his friend John J. Kelly who was the top American in 7th place. In 1955 he was doing speed work like no other distance runner in the history of U.S. distance running. With that training, the next year he was third place, first American, in 2:19:57 at Boston. The first three finishers broke their respective national records with Costes becoming the first American to break 2:20 for the marathon. In the 1956 Boston Marathon he improved his time to 2:18:01 and also won the National Marathon title in Yonkers. In a unique occurrence, three runners from the same school, Boston University, made the Olympic marathon team in 1956. Costes was the top American finisher in the Melbourne Olympics that year. Costes moved to Troy State University in Alabama in 1957, to organize a track and cross country program and teach in the school’s physical education department. In 1958, he conducted the first road race in Alabama. That event marked the start of running clubs in this state. He was a strong supporter of the RRCA in the South publishing one of the first running newsletters in the area and served as RRCA VP-South from 1975 to 1978. He continued running, speaking and writing about distance running throughout his life. As a top masters runner he had a great influence on runners in the South during the so called ?running boom? when the sport of road racing became popular.

Ron Daws
He was a runner who competed in the 1968 Olympic Marathon in Mexico. Daws helped organized the Minnesota Road Runners Club. He began training intensively for the 1968 Olympics about four years beforehand. He finished 22nd of 82 runners in Mexico City on October 20, 1968. For a period of five or six years, following the Olympics, Ron took his family with him for two weeks into the mountains near Colorado Springs, to a Running Camp. Here he lectured and coached runners. He continued running marathons until 1983 and took many pupils under his wing. From the mid-1960s to the middle-1980s there wasn’t anybody who ran in Minnesota who didn’t come into contact with Ron Daws. He was the guru of the running community. In Ron’s first book, The Self-Made Olympian, he explained the New Zealand runner and coach Arthur Lydiard’s system. His second book, Running Your Best, also included workout charts, quotes and anecdotes gathered from 25 years at the top of his sport. He also wrote articles for Runner’s World magazine. He was commissioned by the magazine to paint watercolor collages of five or six famous runners. His work was published in the magazine’s 1988 Olympic section. He also illustrated his second book. He continued to run 10k and 5-mile races but fell in love with cross-country skiing. He said running was great but skiing far excelled it.

Doris Brown Heritage
A pioneer in women’s distance running, she won the world cross country championships from 1967 to 1972, which was during its first five years. Undeterred by the obstacles women faced in the sport during those years, she had already developed her versatility as a runner. After being barred from even using the school track while she was in Peninsula High School, she joined a local running club and set a national record in the 440-yard dash. She next trained for the 800 meters and finished third at the 1960 Trials. Unfortunately, her time didn’t qualify her for the Rome Olympics. That year, she entered Seattle Pacific College and began running with the men’s team. A broken foot kept her off the 1964 Olympic team, but she pressed ahead. In 1966, she became the first women to run a sub-5 minute mile indoors, clocking 4:52. By the following year, she began her string of five world cross country championships. In 1968, she finished fifth in the 800 meters at the Mexico City Olympics. She set world records at 3000m and two miles during 1971, and that year, took a silver medal in the 800m at the Pan American Games. In all, she represented the U.S. on nine world cross country teams and won 14 national titles. An outstanding distance running coach at Seattle Pacific University, she was named an assistant coach for the U.S. women’s team at the 1984 Olympics and 1987 Outdoor World Championships. She is also the first female member of the Cross Country and Road Running Committee of the IAAF, the world’s governing body for the sport. In addition, Heritage is a member of the Distance Running Hall of Fame.

1987

Bill Bowerman
He was an American track and field coach and co-founder of Nike, Inc. He was a very successful track coach, training 31 Olympians, 51 All-Americans, 12 American record-holders, 24 NCAA champions, and 16 sub-4 minute milers. During his 24 years as coach at the University of Oregon, the track and field team had a winning season every season but one, attained 4 NCAA titles, and finished in the top 10 in the nation 16 times.

Hugh Jascourt
A cross-country star at the University of Pennsylvania in the 1950s, he became a running advocate and a race promoter at a time when it was something of an anomaly to see men and women of all ages, shapes and sizes, clad in skimpy running shorts and lightweight running shoes, jogging on city streets or in such places as Rock Creek Park or on the Mall. He organized the first Road Runners clubs in Philadelphia in 1956 and in Detroit in 1958, while he was studying law at Wayne State University. He moved to Washington in 1959, organized the D.C. Road Runners Club in 1961 and immediately began promoting local races year-round. Jascourt competed in the races he organized, and he helped coach the U.S. track and field team at the 1964 Southern Games in Trinidad and at the 1966 International Cross Country Championship in Morocco.

Don Kardong
Kardong began running during sophomore year of high school to stay in shape for basketball. He Finished 2nd in the Washington State Cross Country Meet, 1966, where his Seattle Prep team tied for the championship. Kardong ran four years of cross country and three years of track at Stanford, missing one season of eligibility while attending Stanford-in-Britain. He was a member of Stanford’s second place NCAA Cross Country team in 1968. He is the Stanford record holder for two miles, three miles and six miles, and had a best mile time in college of 4:03.2. After graduating from Stanford, Kardong ran a first marathon (2:18:06), and went on to compete in the 1972 U.S. Olympic Trials in the marathon and 10,000 meters. He finished sixth in both events. In 1974, ran a three-mile in 12:57.6 in Eugene, Oregon, becoming the 5th fastest American three-miler of all time. Also in 1974, ran a personal record of 4:01.9 in the mile. In 1975, was a member of the U.S. Track and Field Delegation to the People’s Republic of China. In 1976, competed in the IAAF Cross Country Championships in Chepstow, Wales. He finished fourth in the Olympic Marathon in Montreal in 1976, running a personal best of 2:11:16, missing the bronze medal by three seconds. Kardong was selected “Road Runner of the Year” by the Road Runners Club of America in 1976. He continues to compete as a top age-group runner. He won the 1976 Peachtree Road Race and the 1978 Honolulu Marathon. Kardong won his first and only 50-mile race, the 1987 Le Grizz 50-Mile Ultramarathon.

Francie Larrieu Smith
Smith had her best Olympic finish in 1988 with a fifth place finish in the 10,000 meters at Seoul, South Korea. As a crowning achievement, she was the flag bearer for the U.S. Olympic Team in Barcelona, Spain (1992). During the course of her 30-year career, Smith established 36 U.S. records and 12 world bests in distances ranging from 1,000 to 10,000 meters. She was selected by Runner’s World magazine as “The Most Versatile Runner of the Quarter Century.” Smith is a member of several halls of fame including The Texas Women’s Hall of Fame, The National Track and Field Hall of Fame, and the Long Distance Running Hall of Fame. She coaches at Southwestern University.

1988

Garry Bjorklund
He moved from Minnesota to Boulder in 1975 to prepare for the Pan American Games in Mexico City. He then went on from there to compete in the 10,000 meters at the Montreal Olympics.

Cheryl (Bridges) Flanagan
She was the women’s marathon world record holder in 1971. She was the first woman to break 2:50 in the marathon. Her daughter, Shalene Flanagan, won the bronze medal in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

Thomas Hicks
He was one of the first two men to finish in the 1904 Olympic marathon. Although they had a European birthplace in common, their occupations could hardly have been more divergent ? Hicks was a clown by profession and Coray earned his living as a professional strike-breaker. Tom Hicks had been around the American distance running scene for some years, having finished sixth in Boston in 1900, improving to fifth in 1901 and placing second in 1904. This experience was to stand him in good stead, considering the extreme conditions in which the 1904 Olympic marathon was run. The course was hilly, the temperature was 90? F, there were no watering stations apart from a well at the halfway mark, and the automobiles following the race churned up a great deal of dust. Only the fact that Hicks had been sustained by doses of brandy, egg white, and strychnine during the latter stages of the race enabled him to finish. But his dreams of being champion were shattered when he arrived at Francis Field only to see Fred Lorz being photographed, as the victor, with Alice Roosevelt, the daughter of the President Teddy Roosevelt. It later transpired that Lorz had covered much of the course in an automobile and then claimed that his Olympic “victory” was only a practical joke. The AAU did not share his sense of humor and they immediately banned him (he was later reinstated and won the 1905 Boston Marathon). No more was heard of Hicks as after his ordeal, both physical and mental, he retired on the spot.

Kenny Moore
A native of Portland, Oregon, Moore enjoyed a solid running career at the University of Oregon under the direction of Coach Bill Bowerman. After graduating in 1966, he found his niche in long-distance events, including the marathon, and in 1969, he set the U.S. marathon record with a time of 2:13:29. He also scored six consecutive wins at San Francisco?s Bay-to-Breakers from 1968-1973. In 1972, he represented the U.S. at the Munich Olympics, where he placed fourth in the marathon. After enjoying a stellar athletic career, Moore took his interest in sports in a different direction in becoming a writer for Sports Illustrated. He stayed with the magazine for 24 years (1971-1995) while working on various side projects, including co-writing and appearing in the 1980 film ?Personal Best? and the 1988 ?Tequila Sunrise? with Mel Gibson and Kurt Russell. Throughout his life, Moore’s passion for the University of Oregon and its track coach never wavered. He co-wrote and produced Without Limits, a Warner Brothers feature film about Steve Prefontaine and Bowerman (1995-1997). Later he moved back to Eugene to research and publish Bowerman and the Men of Oregon, the complete biography of the coaching legend.

1989

Dick Beardsley
His competitive running career as an elite athlete ended in 1988. Dick is the third fastest American-born runner and he still has the fifth fastest U.S. men’s marathon time in history. Best known for his 1982 Boston Marathon “Duel in the Sun” with Alberto Salazar, Beardsley is also a two-time Olympic Trials Marathon qualifier. He is a two-time winner and course record holder of the Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth, Minnesota and has won the London and Napa Valley marathons.

Herb Lorenz
Was born in Frankfurt Germany. He is also member of the National Distance Running Hall of Fame and was a two-time national Masters Runner of the Year. He had amazing range—49.7 for the 440, 4:06 mile, 14:17 for 5,000 meters on the track, 9:10 steeple, 2:17 marathon—and was a Boston Marathon masters winner. He made the U.S. national XC team for Worlds twice and set numerous masters records. Herb was also a tremendous coach spanning from the 1960s to 2007. In 1988, Herb finished the Broad Street run in 14th place overall, in his 50’s. Herb also ran in over 46 countries during his life. He passed away on February 27, 2011 at the age of 71.

Sy Mah
He was a pioneering U.S. marathon runner. Mah once held the Guinness World record for running 524 marathons in his lifetime. Mah established and taught exercise and cardiac rehabilitation classes at the University of Toledo in Ohio. In 1987, the last full calendar year of his running, Mah ran 46 marathons, a lifetime best.

Harold Tinsley
Harold Tinsley began running track and cross country at Clemson University his sophomore year and progressed to be All-ACC in cross country and won the mile championship in 4:17.5 at the Carolinas (NC, SC) AAU Association Meet in 1958. After graduation he didn’t run again until he began jogging in 1970 to lose weight and gain fitness. A track club was formed in Huntsville, AL in 1971 and Tinsley was elected Executive Secretary and has continued as an officer in the club for all 38 years of its existence. Tinsley has been involved in every aspect of the development of the sport of distance running. In 1975 he set the 2 Mile World Record (9:55.0) for men age 38. He ran his second best marathon at age 39 in a time of 2:33:32 in the Peach Bowl Marathon in Atlanta and his best marathon time in the Rocket City Marathon in Huntsville in 1977 at age 41 in a time of 2:33:05 and ran the New York Marathon in 1978 in 2:35:35. He won the RRCA National 10K Masters Championship in the Peachtree Road Race in Atlanta in 1977 in a time of 33:24. Also in 1977 he was the National USTFF Masters Champion at 880 yards, Mile and 3 Mile (15:23). Tinsley ran races all over the country in the 1980s and was considered one of the top masters in the nation. In 1978 Tinsley was elected RRCA VP-Southern Region and in 1983 was elected President of the RRCA and served as president for 3 years. He served on the RRCA Executive Board in various offices for 10 years. In addition to numerous local awards, Tinsley was the first recipient of the RRCA Rod Steele Outstanding Volunteer Award in 1975 and has won several RRCA awards since. He and his wife Louise were selected as the Road Race Management Race Directors of the Year in 1996. He and Louise founded the first marathon in the state of Alabama in 1977 and co-directed the Rocket City Marathon for 20 years. Rocket City Marathon developed many new race features that are common in road racing today that were done by the race before such services or products could be purchased.